Newsletter No. 243

Engineering Team Rewarded for Imagination at Imagine Cup 2004 T hree engineering students o f the U n i v e r s i t y — D e x t er Ch a n, Edmand Tse, and Cheryl Wong, and Eric Work from the University of Washington, Seattle beat 19 other entries to w i n Imagine Cup 2004 ( Hong Kong ), a software design competition organized by Microsoft. The name of their product is the Portable Shopping Companion (PSC). The team was awarded HK$120, 000 and it w i l l represent Hong Kong to participate in World Imagine Cup 2004 in B r a z il this July. The Hong Ko ng competition took place on 9th May in the conference room of the Grand Hyatt. From left: Cheryl, Edmand, and Dexter with Microsoft representatives It all began in the summer of 2003 when Dexter Chan went to Seattle with other CUHK students on the Budding Scholar Exchange Programme organized by United College. While in Seattle, they teamed up with some local students on a project called Mob i le Computing to develop a mobile enquiry system for exchange students. It was on that exchange programme that Dexter gained insight into mobile computing and team management. Afterwards the CUHK academic adviser for the programme, Prof. Helen Meng (Systems Engineering and Engineering Management) encouraged Dexter to participate in Imagine Cup 2004 (HK). She also invited Cheryl to join. Then with the further addition of Edmand and Eric, a team was formed. Technical assistance was provided by Prof. Meng and her own research team. PSC is actually the students' final year project. They had been working on their own systems for a year and combined their work in the four months prior to the contest. The main difficulty lay in transplanting all the functions of the individual projects into the final system and the team had to decide which functions to show and which to discard for the time being. PSC, a highly innovative mobile system used on pocket PCs, is designed f or customers in i ndoor shopp i ng arcades. It provides speaker verification, smart inquiry, location awareness, and t r an s l a t i on services to customers. Speaker v e r i f i c a t i on is used during registration and login. PSC can identify different users by their voice features. When customers are in a shopping mall, PSC stays aware of their positions by the location awareness function. Users can also make enquiries or issue commands in natural language with the smart inquiry and control component and the system equips users w i t h English/Chinese speech-to-speech translation service. The students felt that the contest enabled them to learn teamwork, time management, but it was also exhausting. A l l preparation was done alongside university studies, leaving them no time for leisure. 'Most other students were not interested in the competition because it does not count towards grades. But to me, the experience 一 half-engineering and half-commercial 一 is invaluable. It requires us to think in both engineering and c omme r c i al terms in order to succeed. Also, it rewards innovativeness. This cannot be learnt in the classroom,' said Dexter. Cheryl loves the translation part best because she was the one who did it and she thinks it would be a great help to tourists. Prof. Meng said she had thoroughly en j oyed w o r k i ng w i t h the team o f 'creative, enthusiastic, and diligent, students who have 'realized their vision in mobile computing by engineering the innovative, human-centric user interface in the PSC system'. The Imagine Cup software design competition was founded in 2003 but this is the first year that Hong Kong has been included to hold one of over 40 country- level competitions to select finalists. To prepare for the Brazil contest, the CUHK team w i l l polish their presentation and implement a third language, Putonghua, to make their system more competitive. Taiwanese Pioneer in Gender Studies Visits Gender Studies Programme P rof. Nora Chiang, dean of humanities and social sciences and professor of the Social Work Department of the Pingtung University of Science and Technology in Taiwan, visited the University's Gender Studies Programme from 3rd to 6th May as the programme's Visiting Scholar 2004. Prof. Chiang gave lectures and seminars during her visit. On 4th May, she spoke on 'Feminist Geography: A Quiet Revolution' and had a roundtable with gender studies faculty on 'Engendering Social Science Pedogogy'. On 5th May, she gave a workshop for graduate students on 'Feminist Methodology: Is Qualitative or Quantitative Better'. A l l these activities were coorganized by the Gender Research Centre of the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies. CUHK Students Placed Second in Division at Moot Corp 2004 F our graduate students o f the University—Alan H.F. Lam (Ph.D., engineering), Vincent Wang Dong (MBA), Sharon Yan Ping (M.Phil., engineering), and Rockson Zhang Changchun (MBA) won second place in their division at the Global Moot Corp 2004 Competition held at the University of Texas in Austin from 5th to 8th May 2004. The CUHK team presented a plan for Sengital ( HK) Ltd., a company which designs and markets products based on low-power, wireless, motion sensing technologies, i nc l ud i ng a computer mouse on a ring and a game controller. The company registered last month and has plans to begin operations soon at the Science Park. The overall winner o f Global Moot Corp 2004 was Carnegie Mellon University. Moot Corp ( http://www.mootcorp. org) is a prestigious international business plan competition where students from top business schools in six continents present plans for start-up ventures to panels of venture capitalist judges. Chinese B i b l i cal Scholars Assemble at Ch u ng Ch i O ver 70 ethnic Chinese b i b l i cal scholars f r om 14 countries and regions in Asia, Europe, North America, and Aus t r a l ia took part in the first International Congress of Ethnic-Chinese Biblical Scholars from 25th to 29th May 2004. The congress, jointly sponsored by the Ethnic-Chinese Biblical Colloquium and the Theology Division of Chung Chi College, comprised six plenary lectures, papers in five concurrent sessions, two forums on 'Present and Future of Biblical Studies', and three lectures for the general public. The congress took place in the Theology Building except for the two public lectures which were presented at Y MCA on Waterloo Road. Rev. Prof. Lo Lung-kwong, head of the Theology Division, welcomed the participants at the opening ceremony on 25th May, while Archbishop John Ha of K u c h i n g ( M a l a y s i a ) g a ve t he c o n v o c a t i on address. A n open i ng banquet was held at the staff club of Chung Chi College in the evening, hosted by Prof. Rance Lee, head of Chung Chi College. To Promote Bone Health among Mothers O ver 300 women attended the Mother's Day Bone Health Programme organized by the Jockey Club Centre for Osteoporosis Care and Control at the Postgraduate Education Centre of the Prince of Wales Hospital on 8th May. Dr. Dicky Choy, centre physician-in-charge, talked about the causes and treatment of osteoporosis while Ms. Winny Lau, centre dietitian, explained about a high calcium diet. Mr. Anthony Kwok, centre manager and physiotherapist, discussed exercises against osteoporosis. On 30th May, over 650 seniors attended the Parents' Day Bone Health Programme ( photo) organized by the centre jointly with the Hong Kong Osteoporosis Foundation and the Hong Kong Federation of Women at Leighton H i l l Community Hall. The participants received free b l ood pressure examination, ultrasound bone density measurement, and medical consultation. Officiating at the opening ceremony were Ms. Rita Fan, chairman of Legco, Ms. Peggy Lam, chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Women, Dr. K.H. Mak, vice-chairman o f the Hong Kong Osteoporosis Foundation, and Prof. P.C. Leung, director of the centre. 2 No. 243 19th June 2004